Sendmail Vulnerability Question

[Tom Jackson]

Hi:

I've notified management about the sendmail vulnerability problem, now I'm waiting for them to decide if I should take immediate action.

First question: Since we don't use our unix mail for anything except to report on cron jobs, can I disable its startup without affecting anything else?

Second question: How should I disable the startup?

Tom

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Edit /etc/rc.config.d/mailservs
and set "export SENDMAIL_SERVER" to 0.

Pete

[Paul Sperry]

To disable it at startup edit
/etc/rc.config.d/mailservs



export SENDMAIL_SERVER=0

[Hai Nguyen_1]

Tom,

1) Yes, disabling it will not cause any harm.

2) Fist stop sendmail daemon, then disabling it from coming up at bootup.
# /sbin/init.d/sendmail stop

# vi /etc/rc.config.d/mailsevrs
to change:
export SENDMAIL_SERVER=1
to:
export SENDMAIL_SERVER=0

Hai

[Helen French]

You can also use this command to kill the current running sendmail:

# killsm

This is exactly similar like doing:

# /sbin/init.d/sendmail stop

But before doing that, remember that the root mail messages and the mail message from your cron jobs are important.

[Tom Jackson]

Pete, Paul, and Hai:

Thanks for your fast response. Sendmail is down and I'll test the reboot tomorrow.

Tom